The day ended well
It's been a tiring day. I got up this morning at 5:30am, so that I could go make rounds early, and maximize how much time I could spend with the family. By the time I got home it was 10am, and one look at the house made me realize what I had to do next. I immediately went into cleaning mode: mopping, sweeping, vacuuming and even cleaning off the much neglected blinds. It took me quite a while to get the downstairs part of the house completed, and I didn't even think of starting on the upper story. Safa had a friend over for most of the day, and we all went to Dairy Queen for lunch. That's when the phone calls started coming from the hospital, and then they kept coming all afternoon. I had a very sick elderly lady in the hospital, one who as of this morning seemed to be getting better. Then suddenly she started to deteriorate, with her heart rate and blood pressure dropping. Based on her wishes the family had decided not to take aggressive measures if she went into cardiac arrest. Well within an hour of this starting the 85 year old lady passed away. She had been sick for no more than 5 days, but with pancreatitis, a disease that has a high mortality rate even in otherwise healthy people. She also had pneumonia, which really worsened her odds. Still, it's so hard to lose a patient under any circumstances. So basically the rest of the day was rather depressing; in my mind I kept wondering if there was anything I would have done differently in her care, but I believe there wasn't.
Days like this are hard on me, then I think about how many blessings I have. I had a solid 2 hours of quality time with the kids before they went to bed. I can't even count how many books Bilal and I read together, and then as soon as he went to bed Safa, Hamza and I played a highly competitive game of Scrabble. Now they are in bed, and I'm think of doing the same, but first I have to share some photos of the kids from today and yesterday.
Hamza, the birthday boy
Bilal ready for bed
My princess Safa, with her new haircut
Bilal sporting his new 'doddy' jammas
And the cloud with the silver lining, photo taken by Hamza.
Tahir's trip has been delayed a bit, he will be coming with his family on October 28th instead of the 16th. It's hard to have to wait another 12 days, but we are really excited about their visit. I am planning to take some time off while they are here, so we can see as much of each other as possible.









